It is not uncommon for an automotive vehicle today to have many motors, other actuators, lights etc., controlled by one hundred or more switches and fifty or more relays and connected together by almost five hundred meters of wire, and close to one thousand pin connections grouped in various numbers into connectors. It is not surprising therefore that the vehicular electrical system is a highly unreliable system of the vehicle and a probable cause of most warranty repairs.
Unfortunately, the automobile industry is taking a piecemeal approach to solving this problem when a revolutionary approach is called for. Indeed, a current trend is to group several devices of the vehicle's electrical system together which are located geometrically or physically in the same area of the vehicle and connect them to a zone module which is then connected by communication and power buses to the remainder of the vehicle's electrical system. The resulting hybrid systems still contain substantially the same number and assortment of connectors with only about a 20% reduction in the amount of wire in the vehicle.
Possible definitions of terms used in the application are set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 7,663,502, incorporated by reference herein.